Page 29 of The Shattered City

“You’re looking good, Nibsy,” she said, doing her best to conceal her apprehension. “You know, considering that you should be dead.”

He ignored her taunting. “I knew you’d come,” he told her. “It’s a shame you have no hope at all of leaving. Not with your affinity intact.”

Esta didn’t respond. It wouldn’t do any good to engage with him. She couldn’t panic or do anything rash. She had to think.

She still had the knife. Maybe she’d never be as good an aim as Viola had once been, but her lack of skills wouldn’t stop the magic in the blade from cutting. This man had killed so many: Dolph, Leena, Dakari.

No—he hadn’t yet killed Dakari. But he would if she allowed him to live. He would hurt so many others.

And yet Esta had to allow him to live. There had to be someone waiting here to raise the girl she had once been. Someone had to forge her into the woman she needed to become. Or time would take its due, and it would take Harte with it.

Outside the building, the city beyond had come back to life. Sirens screamed in the distance, and the winter wind howled against the back door, but Esta’s complete focus was on the man in front of her. She lifted Viola’s knife.

“Will you kill me the same as you killed Jack Grew?” Professor Lachlan asked. He lifted his hands as if in surrender, but there was amusement in his old eyes.

She kept the knife raised, a silent threat. Nothing good could come from a long-winded discussion. Not with this snake of a man. She thought she might almost be able to feel her affinity coming back. A little longer and she’d be able to slip free of him.

His expression was as unreadable as it had ever been. “You made quite the impression on the entire country, you know. The pictures were everywhere—your face twisted in rage with your knife plunging into that poor man’s chest. The blood splattered on your dress.” His mouth twitched then as he looked her over—her ill-fitting overalls and inappropriate shoes. “How long has it been for you since that day? Have you lived with what you’ve done for weeks or years… or is the memory still fresh? Tell me, do you remember what it felt like as the blade pressed through bone? Do you still think about the life fading from his eyes?”

Esta refused to take the bait. She couldn’t let herself think about Jack’s death, not when it had barely been hours and not when the horror of what she had done was still too fresh. She couldn’t let herself remember the way it had felt for the knife to slip past the bone and breath in Jack’s chest. It would be with her, haunt her, always. And it didn’t matter that Jack had deserved it. It didn’t matter that Thoth would have destroyed everything with Seshat’s power. Killing Jack had changed her, just as Harte had warned weeks before in the New Jersey train station.

Professor Lachlan’s mouth curved, as though he understood that her thoughts had taken her back there. He took another step down toward her. “Did you enjoy it? It’s a heady feeling to take a life.”

“You should know,” she said, keeping her voice calm. Easy. Don’t let him know.

“It’s true I’ve taken my share,” the old man admitted. “It’s something to watch the final breath, to see the light dim from the eyes. It’s my one regret that I didn’t stay to watch Dolph die. There was too much danger in waiting in the cemetery to stay, to enjoy my final victory.” He tilted his head slightly, as though considering her. “You turned Jack Grew into a martyr, you know. By killing him there, in front of the crowded convention, you made him into a saint, not only for the Brotherhoods, but for the country. You have no idea what’s followed—the gilded statues they’ve raised in his honor, the horrors they’ve committed in his name—or you would have come far sooner than now.”

Esta remained silent. She wouldn’t ask. She would not give him that satisfaction, even as dread crept down her spine.

“But you’ve arrived, as I knew you would. As I planned for you to,” he said, adjusting his grip on the cane. She could see the silver of the Medusa’s face peeking out between his fingers, and on his hand, flashing in the dimly lit stairwell, was the Delphi’s Tear.

The last artifact—it was here. With that ring, they would have all five artifacts and the Book. They could stop Seshat. They had everything they needed—if only she could get it from him.

Esta schooled her expression. She couldn’t let him know how much she wanted the ring. She couldn’t broadcast what she was about to do… especially if he likely already knew. The effects of the opium fog were starting to ebb, but even if she could pull time around her, she’d have to touch the Professor to get the ring. It would draw him into the net of her affinity.

“I’m not here because you planned for me,” she told him. Stall. Keep him talking. He loved to talk.

Her mind raced for a plan that would work. She spun through ideas, immediately discarding them as she took a step forward. If anyone died today, she would make sure it was him. Even if she had to kill him herself, that ring was what she needed to save Harte. She wasn’t leaving without it.

“You know you can’t kill me,” Professor Lachlan said.

Esta, undeterred, gave him a smile that was all teeth. “I can try.”

“You could,” he admitted. “But you won’t succeed. You should know by now that already I’ve planned for every possibility. Even this one.”

A door to Esta’s left opened then, spilling light into the dark vestibule, and when she turned to see what danger was approaching, her breath seized in her chest, and the world seemed to freeze.

Horror jolted through her as she came face-to-face with a ghost from her past.

MISSING

1902—Little Africa

Cela Johnson still felt the exhaustion of the night before, but she thought she was covering it well enough. Crossing her arms over her chest, she faced her brother, Abel, as confidently as she ever had. But even as they talked, she kept one ear alert for any indication that Viola or Jianyu might be returning to the small basement rooms they all shared.

Jianyu had not returned the night before. It wasn’t unusual for him to deliver news of their midnight rescues to the waiting families, but he always returned before dawn. As the minutes ticked by and night turned to morning, Cela and Viola had both finally admitted something must have gone wrong.

Viola had gone out to find him. It wasn’t any safer for her to be out alone, but at least she could defend herself in ways Cela couldn’t. She’d left just after dawn, but it was nearly noon now, and she still hadn’t returned. So Cela had more on her mind than Abel’s too-familiar argument about why she needed to get out of the city. In the past few weeks, the conversation had become one she was beyond tired of having, especially since it was clear that neither she nor her older brother was going to change their mind.

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